Business objects encapsulate semantically related functionality and structure. A business object can include a hierarchy of semantically related nodes, which represent data as attributes. In addition, a business object can be an independently viable entity with identifiable instances as well as bundle functions and data, both of which may be accessible from outside of the business object. Business objects can be described by a data model, an internal process model, and one or more typed service interfaces, and can be a core structuring element of applications that are centrally defined by a developer as part of an overall governance process.
The dependency between instances of two nodes of a business object can be expressed by the help of associations. An association can be a direct, unidirectional, binary relationship between two business object nodes. Each association can be used to navigate from one node (source node) to the related node (target node). In addition, associations can have parameters to filter the result of the associated nodes and/or have a defined multiplicity which gives information about the number of associated nodes.